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0 pointsajross4y ago0 comments

> There are way worse things for your mental health than habitual physical activity. I'd bet half the people here would benefit from a good tunnel project.

True enough[1], but "aggravating a clear conflict with ones partner" clearly qualifies. Obviously we have only one side of the story here, but it's not so much "digging the tunnel" that is at issue here. It's "digging the tunnel and failing to sufficiently explain the hobby to your increasingly concerned girlfriend" that carries this into the realm of nutjobbery. It's one thing to be "I know it's weird, but <my obscure hobby> makes me happy and I promise it won't impact our relationship" and quite another to front with "I'm digging the tunnel. Leave me alone."

The implicit questions being asked by the poster here are ones our amateur miner should have answered long ago, basically.

[1] And for the record: I have a hard time believing that an amateur tunnel through sediment in an otherwise typical geological area is all that dangerous, the guy isn't chasing veins through bedrock or tapping sinkholes here.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

lazide4y ago· 2 in thread

It’s likely more dangerous thank bedrock tunneling frankly. Loosely consolidated sedimentary soil can easily shift and slide with relatively little outside input. A truck driving by, a rain, sprinklers, even someone walking over it.

And it only takes a small amount of dirt covering someone to crush them or suffocate them to death. Literally less than a foot depending on distribution.

Construction crews have to shore up anything higher than waist high for this reason.

fifticon4y ago

A guy on our street died digging out for sewer, only ~2m deep - a side he had stacked dirt on caved in/slided and covered him. He left a wife and 2 kids. No tunnel, just unsafely stacked dirt mound.

rotexo4y ago

Thank you. My partner is an architect, and while they aren’t a structural engineer, they had enough structures training in grad school to know that hobby tunnel digging is extremely dangerous. There are clearly alternative physical activities that would have all the same benefits with none of the downsides.

jacquesm4y ago

You never really know which is the rock that keeps the rest of them up.

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